


Stale Food, Rotten.

by akubi



Category: SEVENTEEN (Band)
Genre: Angst, Depression, Hurt/Comfort, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-10
Updated: 2019-08-10
Packaged: 2020-08-14 12:44:17
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,958
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20192506
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/akubi/pseuds/akubi
Summary: let's be silent for now, if it could ease your pain.don't push yourself, I won't say anything..Junhui sat there at the edge of the table, busy tinkering with his phone. Somewhat bothered by Wonwoo's last text to him.'I'm fine don't worry about it'They both know it's not fine.How many days--months has it been since they feel truly happy.even though we know it's a lie and we are bound to be getting hurt.so today, I'll gulp everything down.





	Stale Food, Rotten.

**Author's Note:**

> it's been sitting in my note for a long time, I doubt I'll ever update it so I'll just post this here

"It's okay, Wonwoo."

In a hot summer day.  
That was the first time Wonwoo felt how cold his fingertips are.

How he breathes so steadily in front of him, despite his emotional turbulance inside. One breath every three palpable loud thumps of his heart. As if he just woke up from a bad dream..

But the bad dream is here, ready to devour him.

He is right there, right in the other end of the small dining table. Junhui was definitely in an arm's reach.

But Wonwoo couldn't.

It's over.  
It's over.  
Mantra ringing in his head.

"I understand."  
That voice is still sweet than ever. Junhui's smiles has no slight hint of malice in his words despite everything..

Despite what has Wonwoo done. To him. To the both of them.

.

It's 02:01 AM

Wonwoo woke up with a cold sweats all over his body. He took his medication and fall asleep right after, he don't know how many days it has been since Junhui left. For the better or worse, it was definitely the best they can do.

Staring up his dark ceiling. Again.

"I knew I'd hurt him."

Wonwoo knows.

He had always known that he had some issues, deep down he feels unstable. Like walking through thin ice that could break with each step he took.

He could love and receive love, but why he still feels empty. No matter how much he likes spending time with the person he likes. "Wonwoo, do you love me?" are often asked to him as the last word they had to say.

Junhui.

Junhui was different.  
"Wonwoo, I like being with you." The chinese raven haired boy once said at the 2nd year of university. Almost too casual to be a confession, but he sounds really sincere.

Wonwoo was taken aback by that warmth in his tone.

As the silence rising between them, the waves crashes loud with the sea breeze washes over the night beach. The fireworks they lit slowly dimmed, fallen to the coarse sand. Wonwoo finds his hand on Junhui's fingers.

"Was that a confession, Moon Junhwi?"

"Maybe?" Junhui giggled.

Wonwoo paused, "I'm honestly not good at relationship... But I feel the same." As the fireworks they held dimmed, they shared a kiss. Junhui's lips was soft, softer than he imagined kissing a boy his age would be. The salt smell of the sea and faint smell of vanilla comforting him.

Wonwoo thought he could never said it. It always sounds fake when he said it. It taste like lies he's spouting.

"I love you."

It felt like a curse he said upon Junhui.  
.

"I love you." The TV noise he let running echoes in his pathetic room. The voice sounds sweet as it could ever be, but Wonwoo could only stare at the TV coldly, his tear stained eyes looks almost dazed.

'it's over'

Wonwoo shut his eyes down. He remembers it like just yesterday.

He and Jun just graduated. Somehow those years in college was the happiest he is ever been, maybe because of the still distance in between them at the time. It's just okay to hang out and call it a date.

Junhui had few gigs going on in the third year as he enters a modelling agency. Wonwoo had just got accepted to a corporate job while he write on the side. Everything just come unplanned with them, both being young and green. He remembers walking in a mall with Junhui and being handed something. It was a brochure of some luxurious apartement they can't afford.

Nothing of importance, but it sparked an idea in his head. Wonwoo stares at it long and quietly until, "Junhui, why don't we move in together?"

"Yes?" Junhui's face was red. Maybe the sentence had more weight than Wonwoo thought it would be, they are both of a same sex after all so Wonwoo haven't thought the further implications of that.

"You don't want to?" Wonwoo asked sheepishly, unconciously biting the inner part of his cheeks. Jun answered without skipping a beat, "Yes, of course."

Junhui looks absolutely thrilled. But somehow Wonwoo felt like something in his guts dropped, something is aching in him. Maybe it was a warning sign.

'Stop thinking about the past!'

The voice from the TV woke Wonwoo from the catatonic dream state he's in. Shrieking at him followed by a slapping sound.

Wonwoo looked up seeing a familiar face in the screen. His cheek is red, the man in the tv bites his lips so hard it looks like it will bleed in any second now. Hair styled up, perfect with a suit and tie contrasting the now messy face. Junhui looks like a totally different person in front of the camera... Or that's what Wonwoo would say before it all goes downhill.

He has seen this scene.  
He has made Junhui looking like that.

The drama ensues. Junhui furrowed his eyebrows. Somewhat smiling, an inexplicable smile. Desperate.

'It's all my fault, isn't it?'

No.

"No, it's not... Junnie." Wonwoo answered the line in the tv. Tears don't even come swelling up on his eyes anymore. He covered his eyes, blinded by the sudden light in the television. He sink back into his bed like something has pulled him down.

Down through the blankets and mattress.

Down, down, down.

Falling down.  
Down to the abyss in the darkness. Darkness was always something familiar to him. Wonwoo has had his fair share of being disconnected at everything that's going on in the real time. It just happens.

His past girlfriends are mostly someone that just dates for fun; they hit on him, he reciprocate to be polite. The rest of the story are all the same. Wonwoo didn't felt anything and they all left blaming him for everything.

Except Junhui.  
It was rough starting a relationship to someone that Wonwoo really cares.

Perhaps Junhui was too much Wonwoo could asked for. He likes being with him, it reminded him of his late parents. It was alot of overthinking on Wonwoo's part, to not hurt Junhui. Ever.

Every single thing...

"Is there something in my face?" Junhui pouts that one time when Wonwoo stared far too long at him.

"No, it's nothing."

Hidden. Wonwoo isn't sure if this was for the best, perhaps partly it was his pride not to make anyone worry. He couldn't point anything out by himself, why bothering Junhui about it. On top of their new career, Junhui actually getting a role on a popular drama sequel is a big deal.

Wonwoo presses a tight smile.

"Really, it's nothing, Junnie."

It gone downhill from there.  
Partly because Junhui's role was a hit. He got popular despite being a brief side character, but it really took off. He got both more and more offers. With the acting job that requires Junhui to be away for 1-2 weeks each month and Wonwoo looking away from his problems, it's just a matter of time.

Until it cracks, and everything soured painted with a dull color.

Wonwoo felt like he was blindfolded for a while. It felt comfortable again. Danced with ignorance and bottling everything up, Wonwoo never pinpoints when did it all started.

When the dinner table started to get dusty. Tableware left unused. Less and less frequent noises made from the kitchen.

When leftovers are left uneaten, left wrapped nicely in a thin plasen the stale food rots and no one bothering to pick it up.

When more than often, Wonwoo's filled up with more and more guilt seeing them rotting still intact with the paper Junhui placed precariously below the bowl. He can do anything but to throw them away.

When Wonwoo seen Junhui's face more clearly through the television screen. It caught up to him when he feels like something is stuck in his throat everytime he picked Junhui up from the airport. He could no longer looked at him in the eye.

"It's my fault, isn't it?"

Junhui said off to the side on a certain evening when the first snow start hitting up Seoul. He didn't met Wonwoo in the eye, but both of them knows what it is about.

The white noise from the heater, the uncomfortable ruffles of Junhui's jeans, and his cold side profile perfectly traced almost pitch black due to the back light from the setting sun. Wonwoo stood there like he had seen a ghost of his past relationship. Things that was creeping on him now just confronting him.

Again.

He fails to love.

He ended up just bringing misery to them.

Junhui tugs on the side of Wonwoo's sweater. He buried his face to the warmth the fabric, he mumbles but Wonwoo could hear clearly what Jun is saying. "Please tell me if anything is wrong, Wonwoo."

Perhaps like an open lid, Wonwoo at the time just burst. It's just like turning a knob on the sink, it just drips down on his stone cold face. Tears leaking, but he felt everything was unchanging. Junhui clearly hugged him, the person he loves, it is supposed to feel better.

But it doesn't.  
Somehow the warmer he could feel Junhui's temperature, the more he felt like being crushed apart.

It kept on crumbling.  
Pieces of him.

Guilt.

Every single one of them.

It kept on falling on Junhui's white knitted jacket. Words couldn't form in his mouth. "What's holding him back", Wonwoo thought to himself. He doesn't understand himself and perhaps he didn't want Junhui to know the ugliness of his heart.

They stay still at the time for a few minutes. Junhui patting Wonwoo's back slowly. Each stroke has the same rhythms as Wonwoo's breaths.

Another long whirl of the heater's fan could be heard. The faint long distance sounds of train passing by. Clocks ticking and water dropping. Breaking that white noise, Junhui stood up.

"It's okay if you can't tell me anything yet..."  
It's here again. The overly familiar warmth, it felt like if he gets too close he will ruin that too. So it keeps on falling. A drop and another.

"But remember I'm here, Wonwoo. I love you."

Wonwoo does not undertand.

'Why did you forgive me so fast?', he would ask, but didn't. Wonwoo didn't remember even replying that day. He didn't remember how it ends either, he just remembers waking up on the couch with Junhui's knit jacket on top of him like a blanket. He remembers how Junhui just casually there, asking 'did you had a good dream, Wonwoo?' while cooking a chinese cuisine. Over the time of being together, Wonwoo knows how Junhui felt through the rhythm of the knife when he chops down ingredients. It's rhythmical and probably why Wonwoo could it better than his own turbulance of emotions.

The sound today are slow yet deep and scattered. Frustrated yet there he is welcoming him.

Again.

But something in that warmth scared him. So Wonwoo stays still, unable to reach out. The dinner table of that day was very quiet despite two people sitting together.

Reaching out.

Keeping out.

Physically there but emotionally absent.

It's an exhausting cycle. And in the end he failed to salvage anything.

Like a stale food that's been sitting on the table for weeks. Consumed by maggots, rotting in silence. It's always been there the urge to take everything out. He feels like a plague itself, a miasma of despair.

Tainted.

"It wouldn't be okay to let this spread further." Wonwoo thought to himself.

Maybe today he could finally take the rotten food out. Wrapped neatly in clear thin sheet of plastic. Yet he was there, breathing, slowly falling into a deep sleep.

Ignoring the calls yet again, cold fingers lays neatly on Wonwoo's chest. 


End file.
